Functional design of wind turbine airfoils based on roughness sensitivity characteristics

To improve aerodynamic performance of wind turbine airfoils,the shape profile characteristic of the airfoil is investigated.Application of conformal transformation,one functional and integrated expression of wind turbine airfoils is presented.Using the boundary layer theory,the aerodynamic model with roughness of wind turbine airfoils is introduced by studying flow separation around the airfoil.Based on the shape expression and aerodynamic performance of airfoils,the function design of wind turbine airfoils is carried out that the maximum lift-drag ratio and low roughness sensitivity are designed objects.Three wind turbines airfoils with different thickness are gained which are used at tip part of blades.As an example,the aerodynamic performance of one designed airfoil with relative thickness of 15%is simulated in different conditions of clean surface,rough surface,laminar flow and turbulent flow.The comparison of aerodynamic performance between the designed airfoil and one popular NACA airfoil is completed which can verify the better performance of the designed airfoil and reliability of the designed method.

Aerodynamic Performances of Wind Turbine Airfoils Using a Panel Method

One of the key features of Laplace＇s Equation is the property that allows the equation governing the flow field to be converted from a 3D problem throughout the field to a 2D problem for finding the potential on the surface. The solution is then found using this property by distributing ＂singularities＂ of unknown strength over discretized portions of the surface： panels. Hence the flow field solution is found by representing the surface by a number of panels, and solving a linear set of algebraic equations to determine the unknown strengths of the singularities. In this paper a Hess-Smith Panel Method is then used to examine the aerodynamics of NACA 4412 and NACA 23015 wind turbine airfoils. The lift coefficient and the pressure distribution are predicted and compared with experimental result for low Reynolds number. Results show a good agreement with experimental data.

A general model for trailing edge serrations simulation on wind turbine airfoils

Trailing edge serrations(TESs)are capable of noticeably suppressing the turbulent trailing edge noise induced by rotating wind turbine blades and become an integral part of a blade.However,the challenges involved in the dimensional design of serration height 2 h,wavelengthλand flap angleϕare yet to be dealt with in a satisfactory manner.To address the problem,a general model for simulating the effects of serrations on the hydrodynamic and aeroacoustic performance is proposed due to its ease of use and relatively low requirements for user input.The solid serrations are replicated by momentum sources calculated by its aerodynamic forces.Then,a case relevant to wind turbine airfoil is examined,a hybrid improved delay detached eddy simulation(IDDES)method coupled with FW-H integration is deployed to obtain the flow features and far-field sound pressure level.It is found that the modeling method could reproduce the flow field and noise as serrated airfoil.

Study on Aerodynamic Performance of Wind Turbine Airfoil Synthesized by Mean Camber Line Superposition Thickness between Bionic and Traditional Airfoil Bionic and Traditional Airfoil

The aerodynamic performance of wind turbine needs to be improved day by day.In this paper,the bionic airfoil of wind turbine and the traditional airfoil are combined to optimize the aerodynamic performance.The new airfoil is synthesized by the method of the mean camber line superposition thickness synthesis.The flow field characteristics of 4 synthetic airfoils were calculated by using the numerical simulation of CFD commercial software Fluent,and compared with 3 original airfoils,new airfoils of different shapes were obtained,and an incomplete synthetic parameterization method for airfoils optimization was proved,which has certain engineering practical value.

Critical Stokes Number for Gas-Solid Flow Erosion of Wind Turbine Airfoil

Wind turbine blades are inevitable to be eroded in wind-sand environment,so it is crucial to identify the flow conditions under which the erosion happens.Here,the effect of the sand diameter on wind turbine airfoil is first investigated.When the sand diameter is less than 3μm,the sands will bypass the airfoil and no erosion occurs.When the sand diameter is larger than 4μm,the sand grains collide with the airfoil and the erosion happens.Thus,there must be a critical sand diameter between 3μm and 4μm,at which the erosion is initiated on the airfoil surface.To find out this critical value,aparticle Stokes number is introduced here.According to the range of the critical sand diameter mentioned above,the critical value of particle Stokes number is reasonably assumed to be between 0.007 8and 0.014.The assumption is subsequently validated by other four factors influecing the erosion,i.e.,the angle of attack,relative thickness of the airfoil,different series airfoil,and inflow velocity.Therefore,the critical range of Stokes number has been confirmed.

Aerodynamic load control on a dynamically pitching wind turbine airfoil using leading-edge protuberance method

The aerodynamic loads of wind turbine blades are substantially affected by dynamic stall induced by the variations of the angle of attack of local airfoil sections.The purpose of the present study is to explore the effect of leading-edge protuberances on the fluctuation of the aerodynamic performances for wind turbine airfoil during dynamic stall.An experimental investigation is carried out by a direct force measurement technique employing force balance at a Reynolds number Re=2×105.The phase-averaged and instantaneous aerodynamic loads of the pitching airfoil,including the baseline and the wavy airfoil,are presented and analyzed.The phase-averaged results indicate that the effects of dynamic stall for the wavy airfoil can be delayed or minimized compared to the baseline airfoil,and the negative damping area of the wavy airfoil is significant decreased in full-stall condition.These effects of leading-edge protuberances are more notable at a higher reduced frequency.For the instantaneous aerodynamic loads of the wavy airfoil,there is an observable reduction in fluctuations compared with baseline case.Furthermore,spectral analysis is applied to quantitatively undercover the nonstationary features of the instantaneous aerodynamic loads.It is found that the leading edge protuberances can reduce the harmonics of the aerodynamic force signal,and enhance the stability of the aerodynamic loads under different reduced frequencies.In conclusion,leading-edge protuberances are found effective to reduce the fluctuation characteristics of the aerodynamic loads during the dynamic stall process,and help to improve the stability and prolong the service life of the wind turbine blades.

Impeller modeling and analysis based on UG NX/KF and Fluent

Parametric modeling of the impeller which drove a small wind device was built by knowledge fusion technology.NACA2410 airfoil blade was created by KF language.Using technology of UG/KF secondary development for the automatic modeling of wind turbine blade,the program can read in the airfoil data files automatically and the impeller model entity can be generated automatically.In order to modify the model,the aerodynamic characteristics of the impeller were analyzed for getting aerodynamic parameters by Fluent.The maximum force torch and best parameters of impeller were calculated.A physical prototype impeller was manufactured and the correctness of the design was verified,and the error of force torch between simulation and experimental results is about 10%.Parameterization design of the impeller model greatly improves the efficiency of modeling and flexibility of the CAD system.

Metamodeling-based parametric optimization of DBD plasma actuation to suppress flow separation over a wind turbine airfoil model

While dielectric-barrier-discharge(DBD)based plasma actuation systems have been successfully demonstrated to suppress massive flow separation over wind turbine blades to reduce the transient aerodynamic loadings acting on the turbine blades,it is still a non-trivial task to establish a best combination of various operating parameters for a DBD plasma actuation system to achieve the optimized flow control effectiveness.In the present study,a regression Kriging based metamodeling technique is developed to optimize the operating parameters of a DBD plasma actuation system for suppressing deep stall over the surface of a wind turbine blade section/airfoil model.The data points were experimentally obtained by embedding a nanosecond-pulsed DBD(NS-DBD)plasma actuator at the leading edge of the airfoil model.The applied voltage and frequency for the NS-DBD plasma actuation were used as the design variables to demonstrate the optimization procedure.The highest possible lift coefficient of the turbine airfoil model at deep stalled angles of attack(i.e.,α?=?22°and 24°)were selected as the objective function for the optimization.It was found that,while the metamodeling-based procedure could accurately predict the objective function within the bounds of the design variables with an uncertainty~?2%,a global accuracy level of~?97%was achieved within the whole design space.